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jluuijicnt jSIato rrhiccs 3 




AN ADDRESS 

BY GEORGE M. WESTON, OF MAINE, 

DELIVERED IN WASHINGTON, D. C, MARCH 25, 1856. 



Tt was never really and intelligently doubt 
ed, that the object of the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise was to extend slavery over re- 
gions into which, under that Compromise, it 
could not have entered; and that the boun- 
daries of Kansas were denned expressly and 
exclusively in aid of that object 

At the present time, it is hardly thought 
worth while to deny what events have made 
so unmistakcable, and within a few days a 
gentleman on the floor of the National House 
of Representatives, occupying relations the 
most intimate and confidential with the men 
who originated the revolutionary legislation 
of 1854, fully and fairly avows the purposes 
they had in view. That gentleman, Mr. Cad- 
walader, of Pennsylvania, in a speech made 
on the 5th of March, 1856, says: 

" The whole of what is now comprbed under the 
names of Kansas and Nebraska had, until 1854, 
been regarded as a single Territory, and had borne 
the name of Nebraska. « * * * 

'•The greater portion of Nebraska comprising not 
le« than four-tilths of this unorganized territory, 
was to r he northward of 40°, and thereforo probably 
not open to settlement by slaveholders. But in 
Kansas, occupying the space between 40° and 37°, 
there was at least the probability of a partial equiv- 
alent for the loss b^ the slue Kilning States of a 
participation in the beneficial adjustment of the 

territory on the Pacific. 

» v * * « * * * 

" Between 40° and the latitude of the southern 
boundary, slavery already existed in Missouri, 
Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware. 
North of 40° no slaveholder could have been ex- 
pected to establish himself. We have already seen 
that it ti'.e whole had formed a single Territory, the 
area Of !i'<- portion to the northward of 40 s would 
have been about tour times that of the portion to 
the southward. Such an organization would have 
been a fraud upon the slaveholding States. Emi- 
grants iroia their country would inevitably have 
i :. i u inhered by a majority from the non-slave- 
holding country." 

According to Ma Cadwaladcr, than whom 
nohodj, is better entitled to speak by authori- 
ty, what "had, until 1854, been regarded as a 
tingle Territory," was not organized "osasin- 
glt 2'errUory" for the reason tli.tt under such 
a;: organization, slavery would have been ex- 
clude, 1 from it; but was divided into two ter- 
ritorie ,at I by a line which secured the south- 
ern of these two territories, in all ordinary 
bility to slavery. In adopting this line 
of division, no regard was had either tot equal- 
ity of area, or suitability of boundary. Ne- 
braska was made four limes as large as Kansas. 
The Platte river was a n itural boundary, but 
this \"iuld have given Kansas a flout on dec 



Iowa of half a degree. The northern boundary 
of Kansas as actually fixed is half a degree 
south of the northern boundary of Missouri, so 
that Missouri covers it and overlaps it. 

The object of the repeal of the Missouri Com- 
promise, as always apparent and now avowed, 
was then, in brief, to carry slavery west of the 
Mississippi, north of the parallel of 36° 30', 
into the latitudes in which it exists in Ken- 
tucky, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, 
east of the Mississippi. This extension of 
slavery over a belt of three and one-half 
degrees of latitude, stretching from Missouri 
to Oregon, is a large question in geography, 
in morals, and in politics, and is not to be 
concluded by a snap-judgment here or else-, 
where. No larger question ever appealed 
to the interests, aroused the passions, or ad- 
dressed the moral convictions of this nation. 
Under our form of government, as worked 
in practice, it can only be settled by a last 
and final appeal to the collective will of the 
people, made effective in the election of the 
Chief Magistrate of the Union. To this ordeal 
it must come at last. Great hazards have been 
incurred, and alarming animosities have been 
inflamed, but as yet, the mischiefs originated 
by the agitators and incendiaries of 1854, are 
not irretrievable. 

What is proposed to be done by the men 
who now conduct public affarrs, is to give a 
northerly direction to the development of the 
negro race. This is a new policy. It is a de- 
parture from principles, settled upon great 
consideration, by those who have preceded 
us. This policy is not necessarily to be con- 
demned because it. is new, but it is an innova- 
tion, and is not to be received with favor or 
partiality. If we undo the work of our fathers, 
it should be for substantial reasons and for 
good cause shown. The maxim, stare decisis, 
imperative in the judicial forum, is weighty 
and persuasive in the political forum. The 
men of 1820^ in fixing the northern limit of 
slavery in the territory west of the Mississippi, 
adopti.'d a line which is an extension of the 
southern boundary of Virginia, Kentucky and 
Missouri. They acted upon the belief that its 
existence in those Stales was not called for by 
their climate or staples, and that its extension 
into simitar latitudes, under national authori- 
ty, should lie forever interdicted. This was 
the judgment of the men of 1820, which they 
embodied in a solemn and memorable settle- 
ment of this question, and which, during an / 



;.:( aeration, has commanded the univer- 

if all men and of all parlies. It is 

now p'^pposed to reverse this judgment of our 

farthers, to undo their work, and to carry the 

i race an 1 the system of slavery to the 

north, instead of pressing them southward. 

The Question of slavery has many as] ts, 

deed, is inexhaustible in the topics which 
it presents for discussion. Upon the present 
occasion, I propose to call your attention to 
the effects likely to be produced upon the in- 
terests of free labor in the northern and west- 
ern States, ami upon the numbers and ultimate 
destiny of the negro race, by the northerly di- 
rection now attempted to be given to the de- 
velopment of that race. 

In the present age of free commercial inter- 
course, nations have a direct and immediate 
interest in the productive systems of each 
other; an interest, however, varying with their 
relative positions. 

Thus, New England, as a matter of mere 
inten st, and aside from considerations of gen- 
eral humanity and benevolence, might view 
with indifference, or even complacency, an or- 
ganization of labor, which, however wasteful 
of life, and however stained with cruelty, yet 
enables Cuba and other tropical regions, to 
furnish in abundance and at low prices, arti- 
cles of which she is a large purchaser and con- 
sumer. In this case New England does, in 
fai t. . hare the profits of a sin, without sharing 
either its guilt, or its dangers. 

New England cannot view, and has not 
viewed, with equal complacency, that social 
organization out ofwhicb arises what is called 
the ''■pauper labor" of Europe. She feels the 

■ re of it, in the competition of commerce 
and manufactures, and has insisted upon pro- 

i linst it by tariffs. The cheapness 

of slave labor engaged in raising sugar, enures 

to her benefit; the cheapness of English labor, 

ed in manufacturing cotton, interferes 

• markets of the world with her own 

productions. * 

So intimate, indeed, are the relations of even 
distant nations in these latter days, ami mi 

wide-reaching are the influences of m 

rf system of eastern Ka- 
on the shores of Lake Michigan. 
The grains of Podolia ami the Ukraine, are 
produced at prices, and brought to Odessa by 
methods of transportation, impossible if labor 

Was paid, and sold thereat rates which affect 
• and prolits of the farmers of Wis- 

England has numerous and extensive intcr- 

tropi ul eolonies, of which she is, indeed, not 

tical sovereign, but to a large 

extent, through her citizens, the propri tor. 

■ -la\ ery ha> ing b 

colonies, they Bnd themselvi s. it is said, unable 
mpete with other tropical regions in 
whirl, . «t;ll retaim d : and to 

this fact, tather than to any special philan- 
thropy, many attribute the efforts of Bo 
to abolish i j elseu her 

in her own colonies. It cannot be doubtful, 
that such consideratio what influ- 

ence the present policy of England, hut at the 



same time, it would be most uncandid and most 
ungenerous to deny, that the voluntary con- 
tribution by the British people of twenty mil- 
lions Sterling, towards the liberation of the 
black race in their colonies, was a great and 
most signal act of humanity and benevolence. 
Let it be conceded even, that the act was un- 
wise, and that its consequences have been dis- 
astrous; still, of unquestionable purity in its 
motive, and elevated even to sublimity by the 
sacrifices it involved, it must ever stand an 
imperishable monument to the honor of the 
British race, and indeed, of human nature. 

Negro slavery being established in fifteen 
of the States of this Union, whose area is 
851,508 square miles, while the area of the 
sixteen free States is only 612,597 square miles, 
it is evident, considering the absolute freedom 
of commercial intercourse between the States, 
that that system of labor does, or may, exert 
a decisive and controlling influence upon the 
interests of free labor. That it does so, in re- 
ference to free labor within the slave States 
themselves, producing a lamentable degree of 
degradation among the poorer whites, is quite 
notorious. And a little examination will show, 
that it does now act to some extent in the 
same direction upon free labor in the free 
States, and that under certain circumstances, 
its further action in that direction may be- 
come most serious. 

So far as the slave labor of the southern 
States has been directed, as it mainly has been 
in times past, to the production of cotton, to- 
bacco, rice and sugar — it is not easy to per- 
ceive, that the northern laborer has been oth- 
erwise than benefitted by it, in the cheapening 
of those important and essential artich - of 
universal consumption. Indeed, southern wri- 
ters affirm, with no little petulance, that their 
slaves have worked heretofore for the north, 
and that it would be for the interest of the 
south and a just punishment for the abolition- 
ists, to work them hereafter, to Some extent, 
against the north, in factories, in which, it is 
well established, that the negro is a servieea- 
able laborer. 

So far as this is threatened as a mere matter 
of retaliatian against the north, we need attach 
little importance to it. It ha.- been well .-aid, 
that men resort to hard words and sometimes 
to hard blows, hut never build houses, in a 
passion, ll the southern .-laves are r\> r work- 
ed largely in factories, it will not be out of 
hostility to the north, but because, with in- 
creasing density ol population, such a divcr- 

sion of a portion of them from agriculture 

may be found profitable. Such a contingency 

is neither distant or improbable, and it be- 
hooves the north to look the approaching evil 
feirly in the tare. Some means may. pel haps, 
ad to avert it, and even if it be mcvila- 
ts no part of manly wisdom to shut our 
to it. 
fu considering this matter, it is to be ob- 
served, that the expense of the labor of Blavea 
consists of two parts; the hire paid to the 
- ,ii. 1 the cost of supporting and man- 
aging the slavea themselves. The first item, 
that of the hire paid to the owners, \» at tbu 



time exceedingly high. It may be supposed 
to bear a proportion to the market price of 
slaves, which has greatly increased of late 
years, being now six times as great as it was 
in 1790. This item is to be reckoned, even 
where slaves are worked by their owners, be- 
cause they thereby forego what they would 
receive by hiring them out. What may be 
the future course of the prices of slaves, is a 
matter of uncertainty, and will depend upon 
events. The received opinion is, both at the 
north and south, that with increasing num- 
bers, their market value will fall, and this 
must certainly happen, unless either a more 
considerable proportion of them be diverted 
to mining and manufacturing, or unless the 
agricultural area upon which they are worked 
is constantly enlarged. There are no pruden- 
tial checks operating to restrain*the expansion 
of that species of population, and in the end, 
their labor must, in the circumstances suppo- 
sed, be obtainable at the cost, or possibly a 
little more than the cost, of supporting and 
governiug them. To this complexion it must 
come at last 

Just in proportion as the two systems of 
labor, slave and free, come in contact with 
each other by being directed to the same pur- 
6uits, just in that proportion must the free 
laborers of the North and West be brought 
•within the range of that fatal influence, which 
now acts with direct and unmitigated force 
upon the great mass of the whites at the South. 

In his essay upon Manufactures in the South 
and West, Mr. Tarver of Missouri, says : 

"Without entering into a comparison of the pre- 
sent nominal price of labor in this and other conn- 
trier., it is sufficient to say that whatever the price 
may be, none can produce any given article as cheap 
with hired labor, as he who owns it himself. In the 
latter case the labor is so much capital in hand, and 
it is not so much a question with the owner whether 
he can produce a yard of cloth, or any other given 
article, as low as it can be produced in England, or 
in Massachusetts, b'ut whether by applying his labor 
to the production of the cloth, or other article, he 
can make it more profitable than he can by lining it 
in agriculture. It matters nothing to him how low 
others can produce the article; he can produce it 
lower stitl so long as it is the best use that he. can make 
of his labor, and so long as his labor is worth keeping. 
h ir, upon this principle, that tue Southwest is des- 
tined to monopolize the manufacture of the whole 
cotton crop of the United States." 

The slave owner and the free laborer, so far 
as they are engaged in producing the same 
articles, being direct competitors with each 
other, and the power of the slaveowner to sus- 
tain this competition being regulated and 
measured by the rate at which his slaves can 
be maintained in a condition of efficiency ; it 
becomes important to have clear and exact, 
ideas as to what this rate actually is. No 
question can be more interesting, thai: that of 
the true cost of a species of labor, which doefl 
BOW actually control the condition of the non- 
property holding whiles of the South, and 
which may hereafter regulate tbe wages of 
the workingmeu of the North and West 

In De Bow's Industrial Resources of the 
South and West, volume 1, page 150, will be 
found un estimate by " a practical cotton planter 



of Louisiana," of the following items of ex- 
pense, on a cotton plantation with 100 slaves: 

Medicines, Doctor's bills, &c $-250.00 

To clothe 100 slaves, shoe them, furnish 
bedding, sacks for gathering corn, &c. .. 750.00 

A writer in the Carolinian newspaper, quo- 
ted in the same work of De Bow, vol. 1, page 
161, gives the following statement of certain 
items of expense, on a plantation with forty 
slaves : 

Medicine and medicinal attendance $30.00 

Blankets, 30 in number, at $1.12>j each 33.75 

Shoes, 25 pairs, at §1 .'25 per pair 31 .25 

Cotton osnaburgs, 300 yards, at 3 cents per 

yard : 24.00 

Salt, 6 sacks, at $2.00 each 12.00 

Sugar and coffee for sick, 75 lbs., at 10 cents 

per lb 7.50 

It is stated in reference to this plantation, 
that "the winter but not summer clothing was 
manufactured at the place." There are no other 
items in the account, of expense incurred in 
feeding, or clothing the slaves. The items 
put down amount to $138.25, being §3.46 to 
each slave. 

Solon Robinson, quoted in the same work 
of De Bow, gives the following items of the 
expense of supporting 254 slaves, independent 
of the food raised by themselves, on Colonel 
Williams' plantation, Society Hill, S. C: 

Medical attendance, §1.25 per head §317.50 

2U0 pairs of shoes 175.00 

Annual supply of hats ] UO.Ov, ' 

Bill of cotton and woollen cloth fciO.OO 

100 cotton comforters, iu lieu of bed blan- 
kets 125.00 

100 oil-clothe capotes (New-York cost) 87.50 

Calico dress and handkerchief for each wo- 
man and girl (extra of other clothing). . . 82.00 
Christmas presents, given in lieu of ''ne- 
gro crop." 175 00 

50 sacks of salt 30.00 

400 gallons of molasses 100.00 

3 kegs tobacco, # JO ; 2 bbls. Hour $10 70.00 

2,122.00 
This makes an average of $8.35 to each slave. 

Mr. Robinson gives also, the following items 
of expense on the plantation of Robert Mon- 
tague, Esq., Alabama, with one hundred and 
twenty slaves : 

Medical bill, average, not exceeding $ 40 XU 

Blankets, hats and shoes (other clothing all 

homemade) 250.00 

A "Mississippi Planter" (Indust Ilesources, 
vol. 2, page 331,) says: 

'• I allow for each hand that works out. four 
pounds of clear meat, and one peck of meal per 
week." 

Another writer on the " Management of Ne- 
groes" (hid. -Resources, vol. 2, page 333,) says: 

" What is sufficient food? For as there is a dif- 
ference in practice, there must Be also in opinion 
among owners. The most common practice is to 
allow each hand that labors, whether man, woman, 
or child, (lor a boy or girl ten years old or over, who 
is healthy and growing mpidly, will eat unite as 
much as a full grown man or woman, J three and 
a-haii pounds bacon, it middling, or mm- pounds il 

shoulder, per week, and bread at will ; or if allow- 
anced in this also, a peek nf meal is usually thought 
nuiIk lent. YVuh plenty of vegetables, tins aiiow- 
aaee is quite sufficient ; but if confined to meat and 
bread) negroes who work hard will eat a peck and 
a-halt of meal pet week." 

A "Small Farmer," (Industrial Resources, 
vol. 2, page 336,) says; 



"I think four pounds of clear meat [per week] 
is too much. I have negroes here tliiit have had 
only half a pound [per day] each for twenty years, 
ana they bid fair to outlive their master." 

A " Virginian" from Matthews County, has 
furnished estimates for the Albany Cultivator, 
which 1 find quoted in the Review for the 
South and West, vol. 3, page 2*71. He esti- 
mates clothing and taxes for twenty held 
hands, men, women and boys, tit ten dollars, 
and their food at twenty dollars, each per 
an uu in. 

In an Address delivered before the South 
Carolina Institute, in 1850, Gov. Hammond 
says : 

" Our Northern brethren have one, to mention 
only one, fetal and ominous disqualification for car- 
rying such a contest [uith Great Britain lor manu- 
facturing supremacy] to extremes. With them, 
owing to their social and political condition, the 
tendency of wages is constantly to rise. If they are 
lowered much, or lowered long, the security ot pro- 
perty is at an end. They can substitute no labor 
for ttiat which is virtually entitled to suffrage, and 
their governments, controlled by those who live by 
wages, have no power to protect capital against the 
demands of labor, however unjust. In the South, 
it is wholly different. * * * The great item of cost 
in manufacturing, next to the law material, is that 
of labor. Ami the final result of the great struggle 
for the control and enjoyment of the most important 
industrial pursuit pf the world, will probably depend 
on its comparative cheapness. * * * * In. England, 
factory labor is now limited by law to sixty hours a 
week. In our Northern States, the average of availa- 
ble weekly labor is estimated at seventy-three and a 
half hours. * * * The steady heat of our summers 
is notso prostrating as the short, hut frequent bursts 
of northern summers. If driven to that necessity, 
there is no dm i lit we can extend our hours of labor be- 
yond any of our rivals. The necessary expenses of 

the Southern laborer are not near so great as those of 
one in Northern latitudes. Corn and bread and 
bacon, as much as the epicure may sneer at them, 
with fresh meat only Occasionally, an la moderate 
useof garden vegetables, will, in this region at least, 
give to the laborer greater strength ot muscle and 
constitution, enable him to undergo more fatigue,and 

insure him lunger die and moie enjoyment of it, 
than any other let. And these, indeed, with coffee, 
constitute the habitual food Of the great body of the 
Southern people. Thirteen bushels ol corn, worth 
now, even in the Atlantic Southern States only 
about $6 on thi , and one hundred and sixty 

pounds of bacon, or its equivalent, worth about $9, 
is an ample yearly allowance for a grown person. 
Garden vegetables bear no price except in cities. 
If sugar and coffee be added, si,-, or at most, 819. 
will cover die whole necessary annual cost ol a full 
supply of wholesome and palatable food, purchased 
in the market. • • • • 

Tn an article upon "Sugar Culture i/i the 
West Indies" (Industrial Resources, volume 3, 
I ■ 310,) there is given u detailed account 
of the operations of a Bugar estate in Cuba, 
in 1846, with 310 negroes. Among th 
penses are the following, and they are all 
which relate to the support of the negroes: 
Annual consumption ol mi at for 310 ne- 

10 lb , at 86 pel 100 lbs 82,604.00 

Annual consume , per 

day, at £1.20 i er 100 lbs... 1,483 SO 

: plantains at ;;> cents... 

I per head :. 

Sab.rv ol phj lician 10.00 

Minor expenses, including the hospital 
and medicine bill 3,143.00 

• 
It does not appear how much of this last 
item should be set down to the account of the 
negroes, but including the whole of it, the 



average amount expended for the food, cloth- 
ing and medical attendance of each negro is 
only twenty-six dollars and ninety-eight aud 
one-half cents. 

In an account of another sugar plantation 
in Cuba, given by Dr. Wurdeinan, the clothing 
and food for the negroes are set down at two 
dollars each per annum, without giving the 
items, and the physician's hill is put down at 
two dollars each per annum. 

This whole question of the cost of support- 
ing slaves, both as a matter of fact, and a 
matter of theory, is summed up by Chancellor 
Harper of South Carolina, in his u Memoir 
upon Negro Slavery" in the following lang uage: 

"If the income of every planter of the South- 
ern States were permanently reduced one-half, or 
much more than that, it would not take one jot I rom 
the support and comforts of the slaves. And this 
can never be materially altered until they shall be- 
come so unprofitable that slavery must ot necessity 
be abandoned." 

From the nature of the case, the owners of 
slaves only furnish that degree and amount of 
support which are necessary to maintain their 
efficiency and numbers. They cannot do les3 
than this, if their incomes are diminished; 
they will not do more, if their incomes are 
doubled. There is no possibility of retrench- 
ment, where economy has already done its 
most and its worst. 

The housing of the negro is upon the same 
scale as his food and clothing. The negro 
cabin hardly hgures at all in the inventories 
of plantation stock. 

Nothing being expended upon the education 
or pleasures of the negro; and both sexes and 
nearly all ages being made available for work ; 
the cheapness of slave labor is abundantly 
apparent A woman is worth in the field 
about two-thirds as much as a man, and 
" irhi n a breeding woman gels too heavy to go to 
the field," she may be made otherwise useful, 
as explained by Southern writers upon Rural 
Economy, (see Industrial Resources, volume .'!, 
page 334.) The farmers and mechanics of the 
North and West support their families as well 
as themselves ; thej are ncd content to have 
their wives follow the plough ; and they have 
children at school to feed and clothe. All this 
must be changed, wheu they arc brought fairly 
within the range of the competition of the 
.-hive owner. 

Of the six hundred and seventy-three 
thousand bales of cotton manufactured in the 
United States, as appears bj document 57, ap- 
pended to the last annual report of the Secre- 
tary id' the Treasury, eighty thousand were 
manufactured during the last year, "South unci 
West of Virginia," and mainly, it i 
by slave labor. !t is net understood that the 
amount of slave labor bo i mploi ed has much 
increased w itbin four or live .\ eats pas; : mi. h 

• e being prevented bj the advancing 
-i' the hire of negroes tor agricultural 

purposes. The experiment, however, h 

tried long enough, and upon a scale large 

h, to demonstrate the adaptation of that 

• of labor to factories, and it only needs 
ti turn of events, a change of price in some of 

the products of agriculture, to precipitate that 



extensive appropriation of it to such and sim- 
ilar employments, which is sure to come, sooner 
or later, with the increasing numbers of the 
enslaved race. The time predicted by Mr. Tar- 
ver, when the Southwest will "monopolize" 
the cotton manufacture of the United States 
may never come; but it is no idle speculation 
to suppose, that in this branch of industry, 
the free laborer may soon begin sensibly to feel 
the competing pressure of the slave owner. 

Another matter, not more certain, but estab- 
lished by a longer experience and more uni- 
versal! y" acknowledged to be true, is the supe- 
rior cheapness of the enslaved negro in the 
simpler operations of agriculture, in any lati- 
tude in which the black race will thrive, over 
anv species of free labor. Conceding the full 
force of the fact, that wages are a better stimu- 
lus to industry than the 'lash, it is still im- 
possible for the free laborer to maintain the 
contest with a race, so hardy in their own 
proper climate, so docile, and so cheaply sup- 
ported. Dr. Franklin invited his enemy to 
dine with him, and after sharing with him a' 
bowl of milk, admonished him that one able 
to live always with such simplicity, was not 
easily to be got rid of as a competitor in busi- 
ness. The slave owners of the South may, 
with equal triumph, point the whole world to 
the bill of fare of their laborers, and exult 
with Gov. Hammond, that they can outwork 
even the ••pauper labor" of Europe. 

In contrasting free labor with slave labor, 
and claiming superiority for the former over 
the latter, we naturally think of free labor as 
it actually exists at the North and West, where 
it is educated and intelligent. But free labor 
is not necessarily either, nor is it in fact either, 
except uuder the condition of being fairly 
paid. When its remuneration is lowered by 
successive gradations, as it must be when ex- 
posed to the competition of slave labor, the 
freeman ceases to be educated, or intelligent, 
or to have any superiority to the negro except 
that of race. And this point is reached con- 
siderably before wages sink to the equivalent 
of the support required by the slave, because 
slavery, with all its faults and mischiefs, does 
yet save its subjects by the strong hand of 
coercion from many vices which waste the 
means and energies of the freeman. It is of 
no avail, therefore, that educated and intelli- 
gent free labor may bean overmatch for slave 
labor, because in truth, educated and intelli- 
gent free labor cannot coexist with slavery, 
slave labor wins the victory, not merely by 
its own strength, but by weakening and de- 
teriorating free labor. 

It is certainly true that wealth is more 
rapidlv augmented under free, than under 
slave systems, and that, in a large sense, free 
labor is cheaper than slave labor. The reduc- 
tion of the laborer to the minimum of physical 
subsistence, is the philosophy of Gov. Ham- 
mond .ni.l of the South. A better philosophy, 
even tor capital, is to pay the laborer a rate of 
Wftgea which will uphold his self-respect and 
educate his family. Slave labor, like many 
other cheap things, is dear in the end. But al- 
though exhausting and impoverishing in alJ 



its results and all its influences, it is irresisti- 
bly and unmistakably cheaper, when applied 
to the ruder processes of agriculture, than free 
labor, which it overpowers and reduces to its 
own level, This gift of cheapness, which is 
its only recommendation, is, in truth, its most 
fatal characteristic, because cheap labor im- 
plies an uneducated laborer, general ignorance, 
an absence of the arts and universal impov- 
erishment. In the energetic language made 
use of in 1832 by Hon. C.J. Faulkner, a mem- 
ber of the present Congress from Virginia, "it 
banishes free white labor; it exterminates the me- 
chanic, the artisan, the manufacturer; it deprive* 
them of occupation; it deprives them of bread; 
it converts the energy of a community into indo- 
lence; its power into imbecility; its efficiency into 
weakness." 

Whether or not it be, as Gov. Hammond 
supposes, "a fatal and ominous disqualification " 
that the governments of the Northern and 
Western States are " controlled by those who 
live by wages" and that under their " social 
and political condition, the tendency of wages is 
constantly to rise," while u in the South it is 
wholly different;" it is nevertheless the system 
and condition under which we choose to live, 
and which we are bound to protect against 
the inevitable and eternal antagonism of slave 
labor. In human affairs, the final arbitrament 
is that of power, and if the philosophy of the 
South was as sound, as it seems to us to be 
false and shallow, it would still be a question 
of opposing interests, and the weaker must 
go to the wall. The system of reducing the 
laborer to a bare subsistence, is hostile to the 
individual and personal well-being of thegreat 
mass of the fifteen millions of people who wield 
the political control of the free States; and it 
will be passing strange if they do not so wield 
it as to protect themselves and their own. 

If slavery was removed to the extreme 
South, and confined to cotton, sugar and rice, 
it would, at any rate, not oppress white labor 
by its disastrous competition. But in the 
Northern slave States, it is directed to the same 
agricultural productions as in the free States. 
The white free man in Pennsylvania, who 
raises wheat, works against the black slave in 
Maryland and Virginia who does the same 
thing. The producers of pork and corn at the 
West, encounter a similar competition in Ken- 
tucky and Missouri. At a period of high 
prices, under which the owner of the slave 
receives a large hire for him. and under which 
the free laborer receives large wages, this com- 
petition is not felt, and perhaps not thought 
of. But tli" Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri 
owners ot slaves must work them when price3 
fall, ami lie free laborers of the adjoining 
States will then realize the full severity of 
slave competition. 

A correspondent of the St. Louis Republi- 
can, writing from Pike county, Missouri, ad- 
joining Illinois, and only separated from it by 
the Mississippi river, gives the following ac- 
count of the rates at which negroes were sold 
and hired there on the 1st day of January, 
1856:— 



6 



'Mr. Editor:— Negro men sold on yesterday at 
tho foUowing prices: ^1,365, §1,54-2, $1,405, §1,215, 
$1,275. These men were common crop hands, rang- 
ing from 30 to !.'> years of age. Women brought 
from eight to nine hundred dollars, and one went 
as nigh as §1,040; another as high as §1 ,753. These 
uro a The 

women bringing §800 and §900 were over middle age. 
•• While negroes sold for these prices, they hired 
at corresponding rates. Common (arm hands, > oung 
and likely, hire ; Cor §220 to §232; hoys of 15 and 17 
years ol age, or thereabouts, hired for §140 and §150 
— in every instance the individual hiring, and not 
the owner, paying all charges of every description." 

With these rates of negro hire in .Missouri, 
the farmers and laborers of Iowa and Illinois, 
who own themselves, may receive good wages. 
But such rates cannot be permanent, and when 
they fall, the wages of adjacent free labor must 
fall in a corresponding ratio. 

Over slavery in Maryland and Virginia, the 
nation has not now, and never had. any con- 
trol, and the evil is easier borne, because we 
may feel that we did not muse it by our own 
act or neglect. The Pennsylvania laborer, 
who now encounters the competition of Vir- 
ginia blacks in producing wheat, and who 
will encounter it in producing coal and iron, 
may console himself that the mischief is not 
imputable, either to himself, or to his fathers. 
It is not so in the ease of Missouri, where, if 
the North and West had exhibited more firm- 
ness in 1820, there would not now be a single 
slave. Or even if the men of that day had 
insisted upon the least restrictive of the two 
measures proposed, and had prohibited the 
further immigration of slaves into Missouri; 
the ten thousand then there would, at the 
most, have grown to twenty thousand by 
natural increase, instead of being, as they ac- 
tually are, one hundred thousand by natural 
increase and importation. Something would 
have been gained, if the Northern boundary 
of Missouri had been pushed South to the 
mouth of the Missouri river. As it is, slavery 
is carried op to the latitude of 40° SO') where, 
on any view of the subject, it has no right to 

go- 
In concluding this branch of the discussion, 
it is not inappropriate to observe that in many 
of the States in which the system of peniten- 
tiaries exists, very considerable objection has 
iidc to the employment of their inmates 
in tradl 9 and handicrafts, in which they would 

compete with honest citizens. In soon- of the 

if parties have nol been formed upon 

this question, certainly candidates for office 

have 1 ecu interrogated in reference to it. and 

it has entered as an active element into the 

Lionfl If this jealousy on ihe part 

of workingmen of the competition of a tew 

hundred persons condemned 10 penal servi- 
tude, was natural and justifiable, an occa- 
sion for it immeasurablj greater exists in the 
competition id' the three millions ot' persons 
mned topi rpetnal servitude in the South- 
ern Sts 

I ha r endeavored to satisfy you, 

that the attempt being made under the aoa- 

"i' the dynasty now in power, to bring 

■ d, will, if successful, depress 

and degrade the tree labor of the North and 

West, by subjecting it to slave competition iu 



rae production of the same staples. I will 
now endeavor to satisfy you that this north- 
ward direction of slavery, if not arrested and 
prevented, must result in a marked increase of 
the aggregate of slaves, and must thereby 
enlarge an evil already so gigantic as to seem 
hopeless and irremediable. 

Certainly, it can require no elaboration of 
reasoning, to demonstrate the wisdom of con- 
fining the blacks to those latitudes least favora- 
ble to the increase of the human species, so as 
to give the greatest scope for the expansion of 
the superior race of the whites. Above a cer- 
tain parallel of latitude, which most writers 
fix at 35°, the tendency of the species is to in- 
crease until the utmost possible limit of sub- 
sistence is reached; while below it, numbers 
are kept down by tropical diseases, where the 
means of subsistence seem to be illimitable. 
Precisely where the line is may be doubtful — 
but its existence is certain. The temperate 
North has always been the hive of nations; 
officinagt ntium. If the subject of negro slavery 
in this Union had been within the scope of 
national authority, and if that authority had 
been exercised with any tolerable discretion, 
the black race would now be small in num- 
bers, and confined to pursuits to which white 
labor does not appear to be adapted. As it is, 
the fecundity of the negro has been aided and 
stimulated by the admirable climates of Mary- 
land and Virginia and Kentucky, and it is at 
this day doubtful, whether we are not about 
to commit as a crime West of the Mississippi, 
what we have suffered as a misfortune East of 
it ; whether we are not about to permit there 
under national license and authority, what has 
been forced upon us here by the coercion of 
State sovereignty; the appropriation of the 
finest regions and the most salubrious cli- 
mates to the growth and expansion of a race, 
wh ich is the shame and scandal and weakness 
of our country. 

It has been shown [see FT. C. Carey on the 
Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign,] that 
whereas only 660,000 slaves were found in the 
British West India Islands and Colonics in 
the tropical regions of South America at the 
period of emancipation, 2,000,000 of blacks 
had been imported into those possessions at 

various times from Africa. All the natural 
increase and two-thirds of the original im- 
portation had disappeared. The same thing 
is true of the slave colonies of France ami 
Spain in the same latitudes. These results 
are doubtless attributable, in part, to the lack 
of females among the negroes brought from 
Africa, and in part, perhaps, to a treatment 
less humane than is experienced 1 

in ibis country. Hut. after all, they arc 
mainly attributable to climate. 

This is illustrating a principle by an ex- 
treme case. There is no part of this Union 
any such destruction of the black race, 
as has been witnessed in the Wesi India Is- 
lands, is liki even if bu< h a 
trophe could be regarded as desirable Put it 

is certain, that the line and bealthj 

Virginia are the breeding (.rounds w l:a h .-..j - 

ply laborers for the sugar plantations of Lou- 



isiana; it is certain that the natural increase 
of the blacks is much more rapid in the North- 
ern slave States than in the extreme South; 
it is certain, in fine, that just in proportion as 
we crowd slavery toward the tropic, we shall 
diminish the number, or at least retard the 
increase of the number, of the blacks. The 
sugar regions alone, of Florida, Louisiana and 
Texas, .-ire sufficient to absorb them, and this 
is the true euthanasia of slavery. It was this 
view of the subject which reconciled the North 
to the annexation of Texas. In truth the 
question of slavery, except in reference to the 
balance of political power, was not involved 
in that measure, slavery being already firmly 
established in Texas. But so far as the 
question of the extension and direction of 
slavery was supposed to be involved, or 
might possibly be involved in that measure, 
the people of the North were well content to 
aid in giving a Southern direction to slavery. 
Such a line of policy accorded with their old 
and established opinions; it accorded with 
the ideas which led to the adoptiou of the 
Missouri Compromise; it accorded, indeed, 
with what was until recently the general ex- 
pectation and wish of the country, that sla- 
rer\ would disappear from Maryland, Vir- 
ginia, Kentucky and Missouri. The legisla- 
tion of 1354, revolutionary in its inception, in 
the practices by which it was carried through 
Congress, and in the incidents which have at- 
tended its execution, runs counter to all the 
old, established and well settled opinions of 
the country, North and South. It is an off- 
shoot of violent and dangerous veiws of 
modem growth. It contemplates a complete 
reversal of the entire policy of our govern- 
ment from its foundation. It proposes to push 
North as far as it can possibly exist and with 
a view to its indefinite duration and ascen- 
dancy, an odious and fatal institution, which 
our fathers through nearly three generations 
have systematically labored to narrow, to limit, 
and especially to divert Southward with a 
view to its ultimate and possible extinction. 

If the negro race was actually established in 
Kansas, its removal South might be objected 
to as inhumane. But in determining with 
which of two races we will people a new and 
■noccupied region, wean- unembarrassed with 
*ny such consideration as that. We are not 
perplexed bj vested rights, or vested wrongs, 
and can consult the interests of one race, 
without the fear of doing an injustice to the 
Other. 

I have never been insensible to the force of 
the appeal made by the Southern Slates, 
■gainst being left to be overu helmed, without, 
rebel', escape, or outlet, by the accumulating 
numbers of their blacks. To that appeal of 
alarm and despair, eloquent in the genuine 
Ud uumistakeahle tones of nature, no man 
who knows the true condition of the South, : 
«nn turn a deaf, or reluctant ear. If fraternal i 
nounsel and fraternal aid can avail anything I 
in presence of this great misfortune, never! 
was there a call for them more urgent, 
ins; and irresistible. The sun in all his cir- 
cuit does not shine upon a people, over whose 



future hangs a more portentous and impenetra- 
ble gloom, than that which darkens the destiny 
of the South and throws ominous shadows 
even upon its present life. What seem to be 
its cries of anger, are, to the appreciating ear, 
cries of distress, wrung from the tost and 
distempered fancies of suffering and disease. 

The South needs outlets. This is most true. 
But not outlets which will increase the vol- 
ume of the mischief; not outlets which will 
establish new sources and springs of the fatal 
stream ; not outlets which will carry the dis- 
ease to new regions while it is left unmitiga- 
ted in its old seats. Some things may be di- 
luted by being diffused, but slavery however 
scattered, retains everywhere all the strength 
of its original malignity. Virginia had such 
an outlet in Kentucky, but the temporary re- 
lief has long since become only a duplication 
of the mischief. Missouri, in its turn, instead 
of being a market for slaves, will soon com- 
pete with Virginia and Kentucky in breeding 
slaves. If the policy of 1854 is persisted in, 
this breeding ground of wretched Africans 
will stretch uninterrupted from the Atlantic 
to the Rocky Mountains, furnishing to the 
States upon the Gulf of Mexico a perennial 
supply, and securing to slavery and the slave 
trade an expansion in time and space, amaz- 
ing in its extent and inconceivable in its con- 
sequences. 

The South needs outlets. This is most true. 
But outlets not merely, or mainly, for its 
blacks. If the South could be supposed to 
be absolutely pent up, the first and greatest 
danger to its peculiar social organization 
would come from the side of the whites, upon 
the great mass of whom that organization 
bears with crushing and destructive force. 
Revolutionary outbreaks are common, servile 
wars are rare, in the history of mankind. 
The slave is not often a rebel. Negro slavery 
has been perfectly secure in the West India 
Islands and in inter-tropical South America, 
under a ratio of blacks to whites many fold 
greater than the present ratio even in South 
Carolina. It fell in St. Domingo, not from a 
preponderance of the blacks, but from the in- 
terference of the French Assembly, The 
slaveholder fears everybody, but it is the 
white man, and not the black man, whom ha 
fears and has reason to fear as his first enemy. 
The legislation of all the Southern States 
proves it. in the two States out of which 
this District was formed, the legi.ilalive power 
is secured to the slaveholders as against the 
majority of the whites, by constitutional 
gerrymanders. In most of the Southern 
States, the power to touch the question of 
slavery is taken from the people by constitu- 
tional prohibitions. This is particularly truo 
in those cases in which there was reason to 
apprehend popular movements to gel rid of 
slavery. The doctrine of allowing the peo- 
ple to fashion their own institutions, which 
Southern gentlemen recommend to us in ref- 
erence to Kansas, they expresslj repudiate at 
Nobody knows better than you do, 
with what indignant unanimity they would 
scout it. if attempted to be applied here, with- 



8 



in whal is left of the ton miles square. The 

doctrine is limited to Kansas, and even there, 
the. perplexing commentary of its practical 
application, so contradicts and obscures the 
text, as to render it unintelligible. 

Of 1,260,982 free person.-; born in Virginia, 
and living in 1850 in the United .States, 388,- 
059 or a traction short of 3) per cent, lived 
out of Virginia. Of 8,607,159 persons bom 
in Ireland and living in 1851, the number of 
2,131,365, or a fraction short of 25 per cent. 
lived oui of Ireland. (See note.) The exodus 
of the Irish has astonished the world, and al- 
though manifestly attributable in part to 
cramped limits and crowded population, is 
justly regarded as striking evidence of British 
tyranny and misrule. Yet as proved by the 
er proportion oi free persons who have 
Bed from Virginia, the oppressions of the 
slave system arc more unendurable, than all 
the wrongs which Ireland has suffered under 
a government established by conquest and 
maintained by force against the antagonisms 
of religiouand race. Certainly, this amazing 
emigration from Virginia is not due to com- 
pressed limits, or exhausted physical resources. 
That State abounds in every tiling except peo- 
ple. Virginia is decrepid in the midst of 
vigorous' nature, poor in the rnidst of over- 
flowing wealth, 

" Magnai inter opes inops." 

No fairer or ampler heritage, was ever wast- 
ed and impoverished by prodigal possessors. 

1 have spoken first of Virginia, because she 
is ydur immediate neighbor, but if you turn 
to the Carolinas, you will find that the same 
terrible scourge which has driven off 31 per 
cent, of the people of Virginia, has driven off 
r cent, of the free people of North Caro- 
lina, and in South Carolina, where the devel- 
opment of the slave system is most complete, 
it has driven off 42 per cent, of the free peo- 
': In- new slave Statis will, in their turn, 
yield to the sane 1 pressure which has already 
depopulated the old. 

If l ! . i f people, white and black, 

from Virj ii ia, could be supposed to be abso- 
lutely prevented, it seems to me impossible 

that the Stability of the social organization 

be maintained against theaci umul 
numbers of ignorant, impoverished and bru- 
talized whites. With the courage and spirit 
men, iiui without the training ami dis- 
cipline and reflection essential to the perma- 
nent existi in f freedom, they have the pre- 
cise characteristics to render them fitting ami 
dangerous instruments of revolutionary lead- 
ers. In the Violent subjugation of Kansas, 

this elas.^ of people in Missouri has been used 
lders, but under other 

Circuit aet lh-ni. 

A brute force like this, at <■ i blind 

and powerful, is a threatening and ominou.-. 

m in the composition of a political com- 



munity. It is a subterranean fire, whose ex- 
plosion may at any moment overturn the 
whole edifice of society. 

I repeat, therefore, that the South needs out- 
lets, not merely or mainly for its blacks, but 
is vitally interested in the preservation of free 
territories, as [daces of refuge for its whites, 
whose accumulation at home, with all the. in- 
vincible, circumstances and causes of social 
degradation which surround them there, por- 
tends the gravest dangers. 

In every point of view, the northern direc- 
tion which it was the sole object of the repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise to give to the in- 
stitution of slavery, ought to provoke resist- 
ance. It is an alarming innovation upon old 
and established principles. It will bring slave 
labor into more immediate and active compe- 
tition with free labor. It will augment the 
numbers of the black race, and render the 
peaceful extinction of slavery forever impossi- 
ble. It is injurious to both sections of the 
Union aud to both the races which inhabit it. 

It provokes indignation to reflect that such 
a measure, big with incalculable consequences 
affecting the destinies of a continent through 
indefinite ages, was precipitated upon us with- 
out warning, and consummated by treachery 
to the free States on the part of individuals, 
who command no respect, either by their 
talents or their characters, and who "had no 
pretensions to places which they occupied only 
through the inattention of the country. Let 
it console us to know that the mischief is not 
yet irremediable, and that it will only become 
SO, by the deliberate sanction of those who 
are to be affected by it. 



Xin-.— The total emigration from Great Britain 
and Ireland during a period ol twenty-six years, 
from Isj.'i to 1851, assuming that one hundred thou- 
sand caine to the United States Ha the Biitish 
North American colonies, was distributed as fol- 
lows : — 

To the United States 1,636,457 

To British colonies and Other places 987,603 

As there were tumid living in 1- iO, ia the United 
States, 1 ,340,8 1 2 persons born in Great Britain and 
Ireland, it may be assu ae I that there w ere then in 
•■ British colonies and oilier places " SOT,hUO persons 
born in ( freal Britain and Ireland. 

in Great Britain anil Ire- 
land, found iii Upper Canada in 1848, it was 

I per cent, v 

In land, li this prop umed for the whole 

I ii in Coloni - and nthtr 
" it would give 435,780 as the number horn 
in Ireland. Thi- i prob ibl) ' 

a pro|K>rtion, as the per eentag« ol Irish born is 
lO- .inio. g the '-ii nalia. than . 

the fin i North Aii> 

nies. \\'e i .u following results : — 

Whole auDiberol Iris -n hh bag March, 

1801 6,007,151) 

Irish bi L Bril au, per census of 

.March. 1851 ' 

Irish I . ■!,; 19 

Irish horn in "British colonies and otio-r 



Irish born living in Ire Iaml, March, 1351.. 6,4 



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